The Expositor's Bible: The Acts of the Apostles, Vol. 2Stokes, George Thomas
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Acts of the Apostles, Vol. 2
Stokes, George Thomas
Bible. Acts -- Commentaries; Bible. Acts -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
[132] The sequel of this story as made known through the Epistles
is most interesting. The quarrel between St. Paul and St. Barnabas
was not a permanent one. Five years or so later, when writing the
1st Epistle to the Corinthians (ix. 6), St. Paul associates
himself with Barnabas as if they were companions once again: "Or I
only, and Barnabas, have we not a right to forbear working?" It is
interesting too to trace the change that came in subsequent years
over the relations between St. Paul and St. Mark as revealed by
the Epistles. About the year 50 St. Paul treated Mark sternly, and
that same sternness was most beneficial to the young man. It was
just what his character wanted. Fifteen years passed over both
their heads, and the scene was then very different. In Col. iv.
10, 11 Mark is commended unto the Church of Colossæ as one of the
few Jewish Christians who had been a comfort in his bonds to the
prisoner of Jesus Christ; while again, when on the point of his
departure, in the 2nd Epistle to Timothy, iv. 11, the once weak
disciple is most touchingly and lovingly remembered: "Only Luke is
with me. Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is useful to
me for ministering." St. Mark, after being the cause of this
quarrel, appears no more in the Acts. The traditions about him
will be found collected in English in Nelson's _Fasts and
Festivals_, under his Feast Day, April 25th; or better still in
Cave's _Lives of the Apostles_, pp. 217-23 (London, 1684); and in
Latin in the _Acta Sanctorum_, Ed. Boll., April, iii., 344-58.
Cave and the Bollandists give all the traditions about his
foundation of the Church of Alexandria, the patriarchs of which
still claim descent from him. Some historical writers have
maintained, that they used to be ordained by the imposition of St.
Mark's dead hand. This seems a mistake, however. Mr. Butler, in
his _Coptic Churches of Egypt_, vol. ii., p. 311, says that the
newly ordained Patriarch of Alexandria used to hold St. Mark's
head in his hands during the celebration of Mass after his
consecration. (See also COPTIC CHURCH in _Dict. Christ. Biog._).
Renaudot, a learned French writer, published a history of the
Alexandrian Patriarchate in 1713, which industriously collects all
the details of St. Mark's life true and imaginary alike. St.
Mark's supposed body was carried to Venice from Alexandria about
A.D. 1235.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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